Comcast rolling out ultra-fast broadband for area businesses

Comcast is rolling out, without fanfare, a much faster broadband service for businesses.

Spokane and just about all other Washington Comcast metros can now sign up for 100 Mbps
Business Class Internet Service.

This is an upgrade that roughly doubles what business customers of Comcast have been getting -- namely about 50 megabits per second for a price of $189.95. The new service, which hasn't even been marketed yet, jumps download speeds to 100 Mbps and upload speeds to 15 Mbps.

The price at the fast fast faster speed is about $369.95 per month. For that price the service is bundled with lots of other goodies, such as a Microsoft Exchange service and Symantec antivirus for up to 25 machines.

Comcast has other other slower-bandwidth options at lower prices for businesses as well.

Walt Neary, a Comcast spokesman, noted that the upgrade provides some of the fastest broadband service available in the nation.

Where already tested, the Comcast Business Class service gives medical companies and large firms with huge data needs plenty of options, Neary noted.

One example: a high-resolution medical image or a large design file of 2 gigabytes could be downloaded in roughly 2.5 minutes on the Business Class service.. Neary said the same file would take 3 hours on the "typical" business T1 line that can download at 1.5 megabits per second.